THE NEW YORK TIMES’ STEVEN WEISMAN IS REPROACHED by Greg Djerejian:

Over at W 43rd Street, I guess, the Butler Report (PDF) has been consigned to the dustbin of history or, at least, appears to be blissfully ignored. . . .

So when Weisman writes, in a non-opinion hard news story in the leading paper in the land, that “the finding that Iraq had tried to buy raw uranium from Niger for a nuclear arms program…turned out to be based on forged documents”–he’s being, shall we say, a bit economical with the truth. The finding was based on something more than just forgeries, it would seem, at least if you believe the report of a leading independent U.K. jurist. Of course, the NYT has been quite sloppy about this story for at least over a year now (click thru for how Weisman’s piece is poorly worded indeed even if you are just dealing with the SSCI report and the U.S. intelligence side of the fence).

I know I beat on this story a bit like a dead horse. I do so largely because the sixteen words of the SOTU have been used by many as partisan talking point to scream ‘Bush lied’! But if you dig into the weeds of the investigations that have taken place–one must judiciously conclude that he didn’t.

Would that we could say the same for others. Read the whole thing.